Methods and apparatus to credit usage of mobile devices

ABSTRACT

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture to monitor mobile internet usage are disclosed. An example method includes identifying, by executing an instruction with a processor, an application associated with a request for Internet content, the request sent at an identified time; determining, by executing an instruction with the processor, that the application is operating in a background mode at the identified time by identifying a uniform resource location (URL) corresponding to the request, the URL included in the request when the application is operating in the background mode; and crediting, by executing an instruction with the processor, the Internet content as a background application when the application is operating in the background mode at the identified time.

RELATED APPLICATION

This patent arises from a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 13/840,543, which was filed on Mar. 15, 2013. U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/840,543 is hereby incorporated herein byreference in its entirety. Priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/840,543 is hereby claimed.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

This disclosure relates generally to media monitoring, and, moreparticularly, to methods and apparatus to credit usage of mobiledevices.

BACKGROUND

In recent years, methods of accessing Internet content have evolved. Forexample, Internet content was formerly primarily accessed via computersystems such as desktop and laptop computers. Recently, handheld mobiledevices (e.g., smartphones) have been introduced that allow users torequest and view Internet content.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an example system constructed in accordancewith the teachings of this disclosure to monitor Internet activity.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example request and responseflow through the example system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example request and responseflow through the example system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is an example data table of HTTP requests stored in the datastore by the proxy of FIG. 1.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions that may be executed to implement the example monitoringsystem of FIG. 1.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions that may be executed to implement the example proxy of FIG.1.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions that may be executed to implement the example creditor ofFIG. 1.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions that may be executed to implement the example creditor ofFIG. 1.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions that may be executed to implement the example creditor ofFIG. 1.

FIGS. 9A, 9B, 9C, 9D, and 9E illustrate example timelines of HTTPrequests that may be credited by the example creditor of FIG. 1.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example report that may be created by the examplereporter of FIG. 1.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions that may be executed to implement the example backgroundidentifier of FIG. 1 to enter a background crediting mode.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions that may be executed to implement the example backgroundidentifier of FIG. 1 to exit a background crediting mode.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions that may be executed to implement the example backgroundcreditor of FIG. 1 to credit applications executing in a backgroundexecution mode.

FIG. 14A is a table illustrating example event records that may beprocessed by the example creditor of FIG. 1 to credit applicationsexecuting in a background execution mode.

FIG. 14B illustrates example foreground and background creditingtimelines representative of the example event records of FIG. 14A.

FIG. 15 is a block diagram of an example processor platform capable ofexecuting the instructions of FIGS. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, and/or 13 toimplement the example monitoring system of FIG. 1.

The figures are not to scale. Wherever possible, the same referencenumbers will be used throughout the drawing(s) and accompanying writtendescription to refer to the same or like parts.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Monitoring companies desire to gain knowledge on how users interact withtheir handheld mobile devices such as smartphones. For example,monitoring companies want to monitor Internet traffic to and/or from thehandheld mobile devices to, among other things, monitor exposure toadvertisements, determine advertisement effectiveness, determine userbehavior, identify purchasing behavior associated with variousdemographics, credit application usage, etc. Some known systems haveutilized a proxy server to monitor Internet content being transmitted toand from the monitored device.

Proxy servers relay requests for media (e.g., images, video, webpages,etc.) from a requesting device to a server and, in turn, relay aresponse from the server to the requesting device. Mobile devicescommonly include multiple communication options such as, for example, aWi-Fi radio, a cellular radio, etc. In some examples, mobile devices canbe configured to route requests for media to (and/or through) a proxyserver.

In some examples, the communication options of the mobile device areconfigured separately for use with the proxy. For example, a Wi-Fi radiomay be configured using a proxy auto configuration (PAC) file, while acellular radio may be configured using a profile. Example systems,methods, and apparatus for configuring a mobile device to interact witha proxy are disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 12/856,651,12/856,643, 13/174,517, each of which are hereby incorporated byreference in their entirety.

Example systems, methods, and apparatus disclosed herein illustrate howapplications associated with hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) messagesreceived at a proxy are credited with durations of presentation. In someexamples, browser traffic (e.g., traffic from a browser application suchas, for example, Apple® Safari®) is analyzed to credit page views and/orpresentation durations associated with page views. Some applicationsutilize protocols other than HTTP such as, for example, HTTP Secure(HTTPS). Accordingly, while the examples disclosed herein are describedwith reference to the HTTP protocol, any other past, present, and/orfuture protocol and/or format of communication may additionally oralternatively be used such as, for example, HTTP secure (HTTPS), FileTransfer Protocol (FTP), etc.

Example systems, methods, and apparatus disclosed herein credit bothforeground and background applications when applications are detected asexecuting in a background mode. As a result, a same time period may becredited to multiple applications when a device is being used formultiple purposes (e.g., listening to music while browsing theInternet). Example systems, methods, and apparatus identify anapplication associated with a first request received at a proxy,determine that the application is operating in a background mode, andcredit the application as a background application based on determiningthat the application is operating in the background mode.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an example system 100 constructed inaccordance with the teachings of this disclosure to monitor Internetactivity. The example system 100 monitors Internet traffic to and/orfrom handheld mobile devices (e.g., a mobile device 105). The monitoredInternet traffic between the monitored devices (e.g., the mobile device105) and Internet sites (e.g., Internet content provider(s) 170) isrouted to the example monitoring system 100. As shown in FIG. 1, thetraffic passes through a proxy 115 of the example monitoring system 100.The example monitoring system 100 includes a registrar 112, the proxy115, a data store 120, a creditor 130, a user identifier 135, a deviceidentifier 140, a request filter 145, an application identifier 150, aduration calculator 155, a reporter 160, a background identifier 175,and a background creditor 180.

The example mobile device 105 of FIG. 1 is a handheld mobile device.While in the illustrated example the mobile device 105 is shown as acellular phone, any other type of device may be used. For example, othertypes or phones (e.g., an Apple® iPhone®), a laptop computer, a desktopcomputer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a netbook, or a tabletcomputer (e.g., an Apple® iPad™) may additionally or alternatively beused. The mobile device may be implemented with any mobile operatingsystem, and may be implemented with any type of hardware and/or formfactor. In the illustrated example, the mobile device communicates via awireless interface. However, any other type(s) of communicationinterface may additionally or alternatively be used such as, forexample, an Ethernet connection, a Bluetooth connection, a Wi-Ficonnection, a cellular connection (e.g., a Time Division Multiple Access(TDMA) connection, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) connection,Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) connection, LongTerm Evolution (LTE) connection, etc.)

In the illustrated example, the mobile device 105 is associated with apanelist participating in a monitoring service. Although the examplesystem of FIG. 1 is a panelist-based system, non-panelist and/or hybridpanelist systems may alternatively be employed. In the panelist systemof the illustrated example, demographic information is obtained from theuser when the user joins and/or registers for the panel. The demographicinformation may be obtained from the user via a telephone interview, byhaving the user complete an online survey, etc. Additionally oralternatively, panelists may be contacted and/or enlisted using anydesired methodology (e.g., random selection, statistical selection,phone solicitations, Internet advertisements, surveys, advertisements inshopping malls, etc.).

In the illustrated example, a first panelist is associated with themobile device 105. In the illustrated example, the mobile device 105 isowned, leased, or otherwise belongs to the first panelist. Themonitoring entity of the illustrated example does not provide the mobiledevice to the first panelist. In other systems, panelists may beprovided with mobile devices to participate in the panel. While in theillustrated example, the mobile device 105 is associated with a singlepanelist, the mobile device 105 may alternatively be associated withmore than one panelist. For example, a family may have a single mobiledevice (e.g., a tablet computer) that may be shared amongst multipleusers. The sharing of a client device is less common when the clientdevice is a cellular phone than when the client device is a portablecomputer (e.g., an Apple® iPad™).

In the illustrated example, the example monitoring system 100 is shownas multiple computing systems. However, the monitoring system 100 mayalternatively be comprised of a single computing system. In theillustrated example, the monitoring system 100 includes the exampleregistrar 112, the example proxy 115, the example data store 120, theexample creditor 130, and the example reporter 160. However, additionalstructures may be implemented to carry out one or more portions of thefunctionalities implemented by the example proxy 115, the example datastore 120, the example creditor 130, the example reporter 160, and/orother structures associated with one or more additional and/oralternative functions.

The registrar 112 of FIG. 1 is implemented by a logic circuit such as aprocessor executing computer readable instructions, but it couldadditionally or alternatively be implemented by an Application SpecificIntegrated Circuit (ASIC(s)), a Programmable Logic Device (PLD(s)), aField Programmable Logic Device (FPLD(s)), an analog circuit, and/ordigital circuitry. In the example of FIG. 1, the registrar 112 receivesregistration information from the panelist and stores a recordidentifying the panelist and/or their respective client device 105. Inthe illustrated example, the record identifying the panelist is a portnumber assigned to the panelist (e.g., the port assigned to the panelistmay be 50,000 and the record identifying the panelist may be 50,000). Inthe illustrated example, the received registration information includesdemographic information. However, any other information may additionallyor alternatively be collected. The registration information may include,for example, information identifying the model of the mobile device 105associated with the panelist, a mailing address associated with thepanelist, an email address associated with the panelist, a phone numberassociated with the mobile device 105, a unique identifier of thepanelist and/or mobile device 105 (e.g., a social security number of thepanelist, a phone number of the mobile device 105, a zip code of thepanelist, and/or any combination or derivation of any informationrelated to the panelist and/or mobile device 105), the age of thepanelist, the gender of the panelist, the race of the panelist, themarital status of the panelist, the income of the panelist and/or thehousehold of the panelist, the employment status of the panelist, wherethe panelist typically intend to use their device, how long the panelisthas owned their device, the education level of the panelist and/or anyother information related to the panelist and/or the mobile device 105.

In the illustrated example, the registration data is received by theregistrar 112 via an electronic interface (e.g., by a panelist enteringdata into a form at a website or answering survey questions at awebsite). However, the registrar 112 may receive the registration datavia any other means. For example, the registrar may receive theregistration data via a personal interview (by telephone or in person),a telephone interface, direct mailing, purchased lists, etc. While theregistrar 112 of the illustrated example is an electronic system, theregistrar 112 may alternatively be implemented manually by a person orgroup of people collecting and entering the registration data into thedata store 120.

Upon receiving the registration data, the registrar 112 of theillustrated example creates a record associating the panelist and deviceidentifier information with the collected demographic information. Theregistrar 112 may also assign a unique alphanumeric identifier to thepanelist or device. The identifier may be based on, for example, aserial number of the mobile device 105. The record is stored in the datastore 120. In the illustrated example, the registrar 112 also assigns aunique port number to the panelist and/or the mobile device 105 andstores the port number in the record (or in association with the recordfor that panelist and/or mobile device). As noted above, in addition toassigning and storing the port number, the registrar may assign andstore additional identifiers. For example, the registrar may assign andstore an identifier of the client device and/or the panelist. Thepanelist or client device identifier(s) may be the same as the portnumber, or they may be different from the port number.

While in the illustrated example port numbers are used to identify thepanelist and/or mobile device 105, any other way of identifying thepanelist and/or mobile device may additionally or alternatively be used.For example, a username and/or password may be used to identify thepanelist and/or mobile device 105.

The data store 120 may be any device for storing data such as, forexample, flash memory, magnetic media, optical media, etc. Furthermore,the data stored in the data store 120 may be in any data format such as,for example, binary data, comma delimited data, tab delimited data,structured query language (SQL) structures, etc. While in theillustrated example the data store 120 is illustrated as a singledatabase, the data store 120 may be implemented by multiple databases.The data store 120 receives and stores identifiers associating apanelist with the mobile device 105 from the registrar 112.Additionally, the data store 120 receives and stores monitoring datafrom the proxy 115. The monitoring data is associated with thecorresponding panelist and/or client device via the port number used forthe corresponding monitored Internet traffic. The data store 120 mayalso be capable of storing data that is not identifiers and/ormeasurement data. For example, software and/or firmware for anycomponent of the monitoring system 100 may be stored in the data store120. Additionally, the data store 120 may store demographic data ascollected by the registrar 112.

The example proxy 115 of the illustrated example of FIG. 1 isimplemented by a logic circuit such as a processor executing computerreadable instructions, but it could additionally or alternatively beimplemented by an ASIC, a PLD, an FPLD, an analog circuit, and/ordigital circuitry. The proxy 115 of the illustrated example receivesrequests from the mobile device 105. The requests of the mobile device105 are received by the proxy 115 based on configuration information(e.g., a server address, a port number, a username, a password, etc.)provided to the panelist and/or mobile device 105. The configurationinformation causes the mobile device 105 to transmit all subsequentrequests through the proxy 115.

Upon receiving a request from the mobile device 105, the proxy 115retrieves the requested Internet content from the Internet contentproviders 170 (or from a local cache if, for example, the content haspreviously been requested and stored). In order to identify the panelistassociated with the request, communication to and from each specificpanelist occurs over the uniquely assigned (e.g., dedicated) port. Thus,each panelist is assigned a unique port and no other panelistcommunicates via that port. In some examples, each panelist/device pairis assigned a unique port number to facilitate differentiation betweenusage of a first device (e.g., a phone) by a panelist and usage of asecond device (e.g., an iPad) by the same panelist. While thecommunication between a mobile device 105 and the proxy 115 occurs overa single port, communication between the proxy 115 and the Internetcontent providers 170 may be implemented over any port. Typically, theport used by the proxy to communicate with content providers 170 islimited to hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) data that occurs over port80. After retrieving the requested Internet content from the Internetcontent provider(s) 170, in the illustrated example the content isrelayed to the requesting mobile device 105 via the port assigned to themobile device. Additionally or alternatively, the content may be relayedto the requesting mobile device 105 via a port other than the assignedport (e.g., port 80).

The proxy 115 of the illustrated example stores the requests forInternet content and/or portion(s) of such requests originating from themobile device 105 in the data store 120 in association with the portnumbers over which the request was received. Example data collected bythe proxy 115 includes a username (e.g., proxy access credentials), anIP Address of the mobile device 115, a proxy port number for a request,a timestamp (e.g., a timestamp in a format such as: 2010-06-1416:04:38-0400), a request method including a full requested URL and/or aquery string, a status code of a response to the request, a size of aresponse to the request (e.g., a size of the payload, excludingheaders), a User Agent, an X-DSID (e.g., a user id for iTunes or AppStore on a iPhone), an X-Apple-Client-Application field value (e.g.,“Software” for AppStore, “WiFi-Music” for iTunes), a referrer, a contenttype of a response to the request, a total size of a response to therequest (e.g., a total size of the payload and HTTP headers), and/ortime taken to serve the request (e.g., in microseconds). In storing therequests, the proxy 115 may additionally store other identifiers suchas, for example, the identifier of the mobile device 105, and/or anidentifier of the panelist. Additionally or alternatively, the proxy 115may store a portion of the Internet content in the data store 120. Forexample, the proxy 115 may store the body of a webpage transmitted tothe mobile device 105. In another example, the proxy 115 may store anidentifier of an advertisement appearing on the webpage transmitted tothe client. This is particularly useful in situations whereadvertisements are rotated at websites. Additionally or alternatively,the proxy 115 may store characteristics of the response, such as, forexample the HTTP header, a status code of the HTTP header, a contenttype of the HTTP header, etc.

The Internet content providers 170 supply content to clients via theInternet. In the illustrated example, the proxy 115 acts as anintermediary for the mobile device 105, and, thus, is the client of theInternet content providers 170. Internet content is often supplied overport 80, as most Internet content is in the form of HTTP data. However,any other port may be used to supply Internet content. For example, filetransfer protocol (FTP) data may be transmitted over port 21, HTTP overSecure Socket Layer (SSL) may be transmitted over port 443, etc.

The Internet content providers 170 can be implemented by any numberand/or type of Internet provider. For example, the Internet contentproviders 170 may comprise a web server hosting webpages formatted asHypertext Markup Language (HTML) content. Alternatively, the Internetcontent provider 170 may be an application server providing applicationcontent (e.g., media, audio, video, etc.) to applications accessingInternet content. The application content may be formatted as HTML, XMLor may use any other protocol or port to return content to therequester. In some examples, the application data is implemented in aprotocol specifically targeted for an application (e.g., a weatherapplication) requesting Internet content.

The example creditor 130 of the illustrated example of FIG. 1 creditsapplication and/or browser usage to the panelist and/or mobile devicebased on the requests received by the proxy 115. In the illustratedexample, the creditor 130 includes the example user identifier 135, theexample device identifier 140, the example request filter 145, theexample application identifier 150, and the example duration calculator155, the example background identifier 175, and the example backgroundcreditor 180.

The example user identifier 135 of the illustrated example of FIG. 1 isimplemented by a logic circuit such as a processor executing computerreadable instructions, but it could additionally or alternatively beimplemented by an ASIC, a PLD, an FPLD, an analog circuit, and/ordigital circuitry. The example user identifier 135 inspects HTTPrequests (and/or records including HTTP requests) received by the proxy115 to determine which user (e.g., panelist) transmitted the request. Inthe illustrated example, the example user identifier 135 identifies thepanelist based on a port number via which the HTTP request is received.As shown in the example table 125 of FIG. 1, each panelist and devicecombination is associated with a unique port number. Accordingly, thepanelist and device may be identified by the user identifier 135 basedon the port number. However, any other approach to identifying apanelist may additionally or alternatively be used. For example,panelists may be identified based on user identifying informationincluded in the received HTTP request (e.g., a username, a password, acookie, etc.)

The example device identifier 140 of the illustrated example of FIG. 1is implemented by a logic circuit such as a processor executing computerreadable instructions, but it could additionally or alternatively beimplemented by an ASIC, a PLD, an FPLD, an analog circuit, and/ordigital circuitry. The example device identifier 140 identifies a devicethat transmitted an HTTP request by performing a lookup of registrationdata and/or device data received from the panelist that is associatedwith the port number of the received request. However, any other methodof identifying the device associated with the received request mayadditionally or alternatively be used. For example, the deviceidentifier 140 may inspect the data in the user agent field of thereceived request to identify a device from which it was transmitted. Insome examples, a user agent field of the received request containsinformation about the operating system version and/or a hardware versionof the device transmitting a request. In some examples, identifierspresent in the user agent field (e.g., version numbers) may be used tolook up a device model in a lookup table. In some examples, the deviceidentifier 140 identifies capabilities and/or features of the mobiledevice based on the lookup. For example, the device identifier 140 mayidentify that the mobile device includes, for example, a cellular radio,a sixteen gigabyte memory device, etc.

The example request filter 145 of the illustrated example of FIG. 1 isimplemented by a logic circuit such as a processor executing computerreadable instructions, but it could additionally or alternatively beimplemented by an ASIC, a PLD, an FPLD, an analog circuit, and/ordigital circuitry. The example request filter 145 filters requestsreceived by the proxy 115 and stored in the data store 120 based on oneor more filters. The request filter 145 creates a filtered request logthat is inspected by the example application identifier 150. In theillustrated example, the request filter 145 filters requests based on,for example, a port number of the received request, a user agent of thereceived request, a URL of the received request, a content type of thereceived request, an HTTP status message of the received request, anHTTP status code of a message returned to the proxy 115 by the Internetcontent providers 170, a parameter of an HTTP response received by theproxy 115 (e.g., a response to a request transmitted to the Internetcontent providers 170 on behalf of the mobile device 105), etc. Inexamples disclosed herein, the example request filter 145 filtersrequests and/or responses to remove records that are not related tocrediting. For example, the example request filter 145 may removerecords that contain invalid information, data errors (e.g., messagesincluding an HTTP status code indicating that there was an error inserving the response), duplicate records, etc.

The example application identifier 150 of the illustrated example ofFIG. 1 is implemented by a logic circuit such as a processor executingcomputer readable instructions, but it could additionally oralternatively be implemented by an ASIC, a PLD, an FPLD, an analogcircuit, and/or digital circuitry. The example application identifier150 identifies an application associated with the received request. Inthe illustrated example, the application identifier 150 identifies theapplication based on one or more of the user agent and/or the URL of therequest. In some examples, the user agent may be generic and the URL maynot identify a particular application. That is, the application may bedifficult to identify. In such an example, the application identifier150 may identify the application associated with the request based onother HTTP requests and/or records including HTTP requests that camefrom the same panelist/device and are within a threshold period of timeof the difficult-to-identify HTTP request.

The example duration calculator 155 of the illustrated example of FIG. 1is implemented by a logic circuit such as a processor executing computerreadable instructions, but it could additionally or alternatively beimplemented by an ASIC, a PLD, an FPLD, an analog circuit, and/ordigital circuitry. The example duration calculator 155 identifiestemporal differences between HTTP requests and, based on whether therequests are associated with the same application, identifies a durationof usage of applications executing in the foreground.

The example reporter 160 of the illustrated example of FIG. 1 isimplemented by a logic circuit such as a processor executing computerreadable instructions, but it could additionally or alternatively beimplemented by an ASIC, a PLD, an FPLD, an analog circuit, and/ordigital circuitry. The reporter 160 generates reports indicative ofapplication usage metrics based on one or more different types of mobiledevices (e.g., personal computers, portable devices, mobile phones,tablets, etc.). For example, the reporter 160 compiles application usagemetrics based on application crediting performed by the example durationcalculator 155. A report is then generated to indicate application usagestatistics. In some examples, the application usage measurements provideratings information for different applications.

Some devices 105 are capable of executing multiple applicationssimultaneously or substantially simultaneously. For example, the device105 may be executing a foreground application with which a userinteracts while executing a background application that performs one ormore tasks (e.g., playing music or other audio) but may not beinteractive (e.g., may not be displayed on the screen of the device105). For example, a Pandora internet radio application may be executedas a foreground application and then continue to play audio as abackground application when the user of the device 105 executes otherapplications. In some operating systems, such background applicationsare referred to as privileged applications, because special privilegesthat are not available to other applications may be required to executein the background on those operating systems. When a privilegedapplication (e.g., an Internet radio application) executes in thebackground, the privileged application may not have control of thescreen (or may have limited control over the screen, such as providingnotifications) and produces little or no output that is visible ordisplayable on the screen of the device 105. Accordingly, crediting abackground application includes crediting other outputs as an exposureto the user such as audio that is output from the application. Thecredited audio output may occur in parallel with any other activity theuser is engaged with in the foreground using the device's screen (e.g.running a totally different application such as a game, a browser,email, etc.).

The example monitoring system 100 of FIG. 1 further includes abackground identifier 175 and a background creditor 180. The examplebackground identifier 175 of FIG. 1 identifies when an application ofinterest is operating or executing in a background mode, When thebackground identifier 175 identifies that an application is executing ina background mode, the example background creditor 180 changes acrediting mode to a background crediting mode.

When crediting in background crediting mode, the example backgroundcreditor 180 utilizes two parallel durations (or timelines) representingthe same time range. A first timeline represents crediting forforeground applications (e.g., crediting as described below, such aswith reference to FIG. 9) and a second timeline represents crediting forbackground applications. The example background creditor 180 of FIG. 1credits background applications by tracking and analyzing event records(e.g., audio URLs for an Internet radio application) originating fromthe privileged application(s) that may execute in the background. Theexample background identifier 175 uses a set of rules to determine whena privileged application has entered background execution and/or whenthis privileged application has finished background execution. Theexample background creditor 180 credits the background application whenthe background identifier 175 identifies a background application, andceases crediting the background application when the backgroundidentifier 175 identifies that the application that was formerlyexecuting in the background has stopped background execution. When theexample background identifier 175 identifies a background application,the example background creditor 180 enters the background mode withrespect to the identified background application.

For each privileged application, the background identifier 175identifies (or is provided with) a set of URLs for identifyingbackground execution. For example, to identify a privileged application,the background identifier 175 may identify URLs fitting the followingcriteria: (1) The URLs are unique in that no HTTP traffic records fromany other applications can have those URLs; and (2) the URLs are seen inthe (alleged) privileged application's HTTP traffic records when theapplication is generating traffic (e.g., designated types of traffic,such as audio traffic for an Internet radio application) regardless ofwhether the privileged application is running in the background, runningin the foreground, or running when the device is in idle/sleep mode. Inthe example of an Internet radio application, identifiable URLs areassociated with one (or more) of the following actions: (a) download thenext song to play; (b) download metadata on the next song to play suchas title, artist, album, track id, lyrics, and/or other metadata; and/or(c) generate a heartbeat (e.g., a fixed, periodic HTTP request that issent to the same server address).

The user agent of a record containing an audio URL may be specific tothe application (e.g., the user agent may not match any existing useragents or patterns of user agent) and/or may be a generic user agent.The presence of these URLs is a necessary condition for the app to runin the background, but not sufficient. Audio URLs are associated withthe act of playing music or, in general, producing audio output from theapp.

Privileged applications may also request the designated or identifiedURLs when the application runs in the foreground. In contrast toexecuting in the background, foreground operation enables interactionwith the privileged application and may permit additional types ofidentifiable URLs that are not available in the background (e.g., URLsto access advertisements, URLs to access other web pages, etc.). In theexample of an Internet radio application, foreground execution enablesthe application to perform additional operations not available duringbackground execution such as: (1) switching stations and/or channels;(2) starting, stopping, and/or skipping tracks, (3) liking and/ordisliking songs; and/or (4) interacting with ads. The example backgroundidentifier 175 of FIG. 1 prevents and/or stops background crediting inresponse to detection of URLs associated with the foreground.

In the example of the Pandora Internet radio application, the backgroundidentifier 175 and/or the background creditor 180 may identify thefollowing types of traffic when the application runs in the background:(1) HTTP records with audio URLs (as defined earlier); (2) HTTP recordswith synchronization and/or backup operations (e.g., iCloud operationsor services); (3) HTTP records with generic user agents that are notaudio URLs; (4) HTTP records with email traffic; and (5) HTTP recordswith ad traffic (e.g., pictures and/or video).

The example background identifier 175 of FIG. 1 uses an event length toidentify whether a privileged application is continuing to execute inthe background. An event length is a threshold time difference orinterval length between two consecutive designated URLs (e.g.,background URLs) from the same privileged application that will becredited to the application regardless of any other parallel traffic(e.g., URLs from other applications and/or browsers) seen from the samedevice. For example, an audio event length is an upper threshold on aninterval between two audio URLs. The example background identifier 175permits the event length to be configurable. An initial audio eventlength value may be set to 4 minutes and 30 seconds (e.g., an estimatefor a length of a song); however, this may change in the future. As usedherein, a designated URL refers to a URL identified in a request thathas been determined to be specific to background execution of anapplication.

When the example monitoring system 100 is in a normal crediting mode(e.g., crediting foreground applications), the example backgroundidentifier 175 analyzes records in chronological order. If thebackground identifier 175 determines that a record corresponding to aprivileged application under question satisfies the followingconditions, the background identifier 175 will identify the privilegedapplication under question as a background application and cause thebackground creditor 180 to enter background crediting mode: (1) therecord to be processed by the monitoring system 100 (e.g., via thecreditor 130) is a record with a designated URL from the privilegedapplication under question; (2) the most recent record prior to therecord to be processed for the privileged application under question didnot occur more than an event length prior to the record to be processedfor the privileged application (e.g., there has not been a time gap ofmore than the event length), and (3) the record to be processed is“app-resolved” to another application.

If there is already a foreground session for the privileged applicationunder question that is being credited in the normal mode (e.g., creditedas a foreground application), then the crediting system stays in thenormal crediting mode and credits the foreground session until thissession is over. Any designated URLs from the privileged applicationprocessed during the foreground session are credited normally (e.g., bythe duration calculator 155) as part of the foreground session using theexisting rules that apply to normal crediting operation (e.g., describedbelow with reference to, for example, FIG. 9).

If a record containing a designated URL is determined to be more thanthe event length from the closest previous record (app-resolved toanother app), then the example duration calculator 155 credits theapplication normally as foreground crediting as described above.

When the background creditor 180 is in the background crediting mode,the example background identifier 175 continues to process event recordsto determine whether to exit the background mode. The example backgroundidentifier 175 ends the background crediting mode if the record is arecord (e.g., a record with a designated URL and/or, in some examples,any record) from a different supported privileged application than theprivileged application for which background crediting mode is running. Arecord from another privileged application having a designated URL or,in some cases, any URL, may be determined to cause the privilegedapplication running in background mode to be closed. The examplebackground identifier 175 also ends the background crediting mode if therecord is a record with a non-designated URL from a privilegedapplication which is currently credited in the background. Anon-designated URL refers to a URL that is not necessarily indicative ofbackground execution by an application and, therefore, may not be reliedon to begin or maintain a background crediting mode. Such a record wouldindicate the privileged application has been returned to foregroundexecution and, thus, is to be credited normally (e.g., as a foregroundapplication). In some examples, the background creditor 180 adds acarry-over credit to the background session that is ended (e.g., toheuristically approximate the time between the last designated URL andthe event of the privileged application coming back to the foreground).

The example background identifier 175 also ends the background creditingmode if a record with a designated URL from the privileged applicationhaving a time distance from the most recent record containing adesignated URL of the same app (e.g., the same or a different designatedURL) is more than the defined event length (e.g., 4.5 minutes for anaudio application) and/or if a record with any URL and/or User Agenthaving a time distance from the closest previous designated URL from theprivileged application is more than the defined event length.

The example background identifier 175 also ends the background creditingmode if a record contains a superseding resource requirement over theprivileged application. For example, a record having an AppleCoreMediaUser Agent, which is a media playback user agent, indicates that theresources (e.g., audio output) of an Internet radio application aresuperseded by media playback of another application. In some examples,the background creditor 180 adds a “carry-over” credit to the backgroundsession of the privileged application.

The example background identifier 175 also ends the background creditingmode if the end of an event record file is reached. The examplebackground creditor 180 begins a next event record file in a normalcrediting mode when a subsequent event record file is to be processed.

Unless the example background identifier 175 ends the backgroundcrediting mode, the example background creditor 180 continues to creditin background mode for the privileged application. Accordingly, theexample background creditor 180 of FIG. 1 remains in backgroundcrediting mode while designated URLs from the same privilegedapplication are analyzed and the time distance between any twoconsecutive records containing designated URLs is no more than thedefined event length, and the privileged application does not return toforeground execution.

While in background crediting mode, the example background creditor 180and the example duration calculator 155 of FIG. 1 credit foreground andbackground applications according to the following example rules:

Rule 1: The first record with a designated URL that started thebackground mode is credited as follows: Let R1 be this record for aprivileged application A. The record R1 is credited with a time:T(R1)−T1, where T1 is the currently defined session starting time forthe timeline of normal mode (e.g., foreground) crediting provided thatT(R1)−T1≤event_length. If T(R1)−T1>event_length, or if the time T1 isnot defined (e.g., a foreground session has not been defined), then therecord R1 is credited with zero time or duration. The example backgroundcreditor 180 of FIG. 1 uses rule 1 to credit time when the privilegedapplication is to be credited with activity prior to the time thebackground record occurs (e.g., an Internet radio application startsplaying prior to entering background mode) when another otherapplication is in a foreground session. On the other hand, if music hadnot started, event records having non-designated URLs would have beenidentified.

Rule 2: For records having a designated URL other than the first record(covered in Rule 1), let Rn be the current record and Rn−1 is theimmediately preceding record with a designated URL from the privilegedapplication A, where n>1. The record Rn is assigned a duration time:T(Rn)−T(Rn−1), where T(R) is defined to be the timestamp of a record R.

Rule 3: Foreground application sessions and/or activity are creditedindependently of the background application sessions (e.g., normalcrediting as described above). Accordingly, the example creditor 130 andthe example background creditor 180 of FIG. 1 maintain two different andindependent timelines (e.g., crediting processes) when operating inbackground mode.

Rule 4: While in background crediting mode with respect to thedesignated application A, the example duration calculator 155 does notconsider any of the records with designated URLs from the privilegedapplication A to be used for crediting foreground applications. In otherwords, the duration calculator 155 of FIG. 1 ignores records used tocredit background applications while crediting foreground applicationsrunning at the same time.

The example data store 120 stores designated URL patterns and/or whetherthe URL patterns are foreground URL patterns or background URL patterns.In the example of FIG. 1, each URL related to a privileged app isclassified as either a designated URL or not a designated URL. The URLsmay be classified automatically and/or manually based on, for example, aspecification provided by an application developer and/or by empiricallyobserving URLs to determine patterns when the application is executingin foreground execution and/or when the application is executing inbackground execution. The URLs may be provided to the example data store120 and/or updated when additional URLs are determined or identifiedand/or when URLs are modified or removed (e.g., no longer used by theapplication). Any URL that does not match an existing classified URLpattern may be flagged and/or transmitted to an external facility formanual classification as a designated or non-designated URL pattern.

Additionally or alternatively, popularities of different applicationsacross different device types may be reported. Such different types ofapplications may be, for example, news applications, media applications(e.g., a streaming media application, an internet radio application,etc.), games, streaming games, email applications, productivityapplication (e.g., note taking applications, dictation applications,etc.), etc. Such comparisons may be made across any type(s) and/ornumbers of devices including, for example, cell phones, smart phones,dedicated portable multimedia playback devices, iPod® devices, tabletcomputing devices (e.g., an iPad®), Internet enabled televisions,stationary computers, portable computers, Internet radios, etc. Anyother type(s) and/or number of applications and/or devices may beanalyzed. The report may also associate the application usage metricswith demographic segments (e.g., age groups, genders, ethnicities, etc.)corresponding to the user(s) of the client device(s). Additionally oralternatively, the report may associate the application usage metricswith metric indicators of the popularity of the application and/orsimilar applications across one or more user characteristics selectedfrom one or more demographic segment(s), one or more age group(s), oneor more gender(s), and/or any other user characteristic(s).

FIG. 2 is a block diagram 200 illustrating an example request andresponse flow through the example system of FIG. 1. The block diagram200 of FIG. 2 illustrates communication between the mobile device 105, afirst network 230, the proxy 115, the data store 120, a second network240, and the Internet content providers 170. The mobile device 105includes a networking subsystem 210, a browser application 215, anapplication 220, and a user interface 225. In the example of FIG. 2, theblock diagram illustrates a first request 235, a second request 245, afirst response 250, and a second response 255.

The networking subsystem 210 provides a framework for transmitting andreceiving content. The networking subsystem 210 may be implemented viaan application processor, a software system that facilitates networkedcommunication, a browser engine, a baseband processor that transmitsnetwork traffic, and/or any other system that provides a framework fortransmitting and receiving content. As used in this context, “content”encompasses material of interest to a user such as entertainment, news,etc. as well as information that may not be of interest to the user suchas advertisements. In the illustrated example, the networking subsystem210 is implemented by the networking libraries provided in the Apple®iPhone® operating system. However, any other libraries, systems, orprograms may additionally or alternatively be used.

The browser application 215 and application 220 are applications thatare executed by a processor of the mobile device 205. The browserapplication 215 requests HTTP Internet content from Internet contentproviders 170, and renders the HTTP content for display. Additionally oralternatively, the browser application may request and render HTTPSInternet content. In some examples, the browser application isimplemented by Apple® Safari®. However, any other application mayalternatively be used. For example, Pocket Internet Explorer may beused. In some examples, the HTTP Internet content is HTML content.However, the content may be presented in any format that may be renderedby the browser application 215.

The application accessing Internet content 220 may be any application onthe mobile device that requests Internet content. For example, theapplication accessing Internet content 220 may be a weather applicationaccessing Internet content provided by www.weather.com. The Internetcontent provider 170 providing content for www.weather.com may respondto content requests with HTML data. However, any other type of data maybe contained in the content request. For example, the Internet contentprovider 170 providing content for www.weather.com may provide an XMLfile containing a condensed weather forecast. Additionally oralternatively, the application accessing Internet content 220 mayrequest media such as, for example, photos, video, audio, etc.Typically, applications accessing Internet content 220 are limited to asmall amount of information to be displayed. For example, the weatherapplication may not be able to display sports news. Although the browser215 or the application accessing Internet content 220 may initiaterequests for content, in some devices, such as the Apple® iPhone®,requests are formatted and transmitted by the device networkingsubsystem 210 based on system wide settings that control routing and/oraddressing of such requests (e.g., to a specific port of a proxy 115).

The user interface 225 of the illustrated example provides a display tothe user and receives input from the user. The user interface 225 maycomprise hardware, a graphics library, and/or a graphics driver fordisplaying content to the panelist, and may comprise hardware, an inputlibrary, and/or an input driver for receiving input from the panelist.Either or both the browser application 215 and/or the applicationaccessing Internet content 220 may utilize the user interface to displaycontent and receive input.

The first and second networks 230, 240 of the illustrated example ofFIG. 2 are public networks (e.g., the Internet). However, a privatenetwork may instead be employed for one or more of the first and/orsecond networks 230, 240. For example, a network internal to anorganization and/or company may be used to determine how members of theorganization and/or employees of the company utilize mobile devices. Inthe illustrated example, the first and second networks 230, 240 areInternet Protocol (IP) version 4 (IPv4) based networks. However, anyother networking technology may additionally or alternatively beimplemented. For example, the networks 230, 240 may implement the IPversion 6 (IPv6) protocol.

The proxy 115 of the illustrated example receives a first request 235for Internet content from the mobile device 105, retrieves the contentby sending a second request 245 to the corresponding content provider170, receives the content in a response 250 from the content provider170, and relays the content to the mobile device 105 via a secondresponse 255. In the illustrated example, the proxy 115 storescharacteristics and/or identifiers of the request and/or response in thedata store 120. These characteristics and/or identifiers may be, forexample, a timestamp of the request and/or response, an IP address ofthe mobile device, a user agent of the request, a status code of theresponse, a content type of the response, etc. However, the proxy 115may additionally store the Internet content of the response in the datastore 120.

The illustrated example shows a communication stream for a singlerequest. The first request 235 is transmitted to the proxy 115 from themobile device 205 over the carrier network 230. The first request 235uses the unique port assigned to the mobile device 105 (e.g., port50,000), and is for HTTP content (e.g., the request is for content thatis served over port 80). However, the content requested may be requestedover any port. For example, the request may be for file transferprotocol (FTP) content and may occur over port 21. The proxy 115, uponreceiving the first request 235, stores some or all of the request inthe data store 120, and generates a second request 245. The secondrequest is addressed to the Internet content provider 170 identified inthe first request 235. The second request 245 in the illustrated exampleis transmitted via the second network 240 over port 80, because thefirst request 235 identified content to be served over port 80. TheInternet content provider 170 responds to the second request 245 withthe first response 250. The proxy 115 receives the first response 250via port 80, stores some or all of the request in the data store 120,and forwards the content of the first response 250 as the secondresponse 255 to the mobile device 105 over the port assigned to themobile device 105.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram 301 illustrating an example request andresponse flow through the example system of FIG. 1. The block diagram301 includes the proxy 115, the Internet content provider(s) 170, themobile device 105, and the first and second networks 230, 240. The blockdiagram 301 additionally includes the first request 235, the secondrequest 245, the first response 250, and the second response 255.Further, the requests and responses of the illustrated example arerepresented by HTTP request and response headers. The first request 235is represented by the first HTTP request header 236 and the secondrequest 245 is represented by the second HTTP request header 246. Thefirst response 250 is represented by the first HTTP response header 251and the second response 255 is represented by the second HTTP responseheader 256.

The first HTTP request header 236 is the header of a GET requestgenerated by the mobile device 105. In the illustrated example, theInternet content provider 170 is identified by the absolute UniversalResource Locator (URL) identified in the first line of the first HTTPrequest header 236 and the address of the proxy 115 and uniquelyassigned port are identified by the “Host” line of the first HTTPrequest header 236. The host identified in the illustrated example isproxy.MonitoringEntity.com, and the port that the request was made on is50,000. However, any other address identifying the proxy 115, and anyother port may alternatively be used. For example, the addressidentifying the proxy 115 may be the Internet Protocol (IP) address ofthe proxy 115. In the illustrated example, the absolute URL of theInternet resource is “http://www.weather.com/home.html”. However, anyother URL may additionally or alternatively be used.

The proxy 115 receives the first content request 235 and generates thesecond content request 245. The second content request 245 isrepresented by the second HTTP request header 246. In the illustratedexample, the second HTTP request header 246 is a GET request directed to“http://www.weather.com”, and is transmitted over port 80 as no portother than port 80 is identified in the header of the first contentrequest 235. The content being requested from “http://www.weather.com”in the illustrated example is “/home.html”. The proxy generates thecontents of the second request by inspecting the first request 235. Forexample, the proxy 115 identifies the requested content of the firstrequest 235 as “http://www.weather.com/home.html”, determines that theport to be translated to is port 80 (identified by http://), determinesthat the Internet content provider 170 identified is “www.weather.com”,and determines that the requested webpage from the Internet contentprovider is “/home.html”. The second content request 245 is transmittedover port 80 because the proxy 115 determines that the requested contentis HTTP content, and no alternative port number is specified.

In some examples, the content identified by a first content request 235may be content that is provided on a port other than port 80. Forexample, the mobile device 105 may seek to request content that ishosted on port 1234, rather than the default port (e.g., port 80). Inthat alternate example, an absolute URL of a first HTTP request headeridentifies the requested content as“http://www.weather.com:1234/home.html”, to convey that the contentidentified by the request is provided on port 1234 (rather than thedefault port). Further, in such an example, the proxy 115 generates asecond HTTP request header that identifies port 1234 (e.g.,www.weather.com:1234).

The Internet content providers 170 receive the second content request245, and respond to the request via the first response 250. The firstresponse 250 is transmitted to the proxy 115. In the illustratedexample, the first response is transmitted over port 80, as it is aresponse to a content request made on port 80. However, any other portmay be used to transmit the first response to the proxy 115. The proxy115 receives the first response 250, and determines the correct portthat the second response 255 should be transmitted over. In theillustrated example, the proxy 115 determines the port that the secondresponse should be transmitted over by associating the first response250 with the first request 235 via the second request 245. In such anexample, the proxy 115 can identify that the first request 235originated on port 50,000, and thus, the second response should betransmitted on port 50,000. However, any other method of determining theport to transmit the second response over may additionally oralternatively be used. Further, the response may be transmitted over aport other than the port assigned to the mobile device 105.

FIG. 4 is an example data table of HTTP requests stored in the datastore 120 by the proxy 115. The example data table 400 includes a deviceidentifier column 410, a panelist identifier column 420, a timestampcolumn 430, and an HTTP request column 440. The ellipses (“ . . . ”) atthe bottom of FIG. 4 indicates that the table contains a truncatedversion of the table for purposes of illustration. Moreover, in theillustrated example of FIG. 4, the example data table 400 includes dataassociated with a single device and a single panelist. However, inpractice, the data table stored in the data store 120 by the proxy 115will include data associated with any number of different devices and/orany number of panelists. Further, the example data table 400 illustratesan example time period of approximately eighteen minutes. However, inpractice, the data table 400 stored in the data store 120 will includedata associated with a longer time frame such as, for example, a hour, aday, a week, month, etc.

The example data table 400 of FIG. 4 includes a first row 450, a secondrow 460, a third row 470, a fourth row 480, and a fifth row 490. Thefirst example row 450 of the illustrated example of FIG. 4 includes arecord that identifies that an Apple iPhone associated with the panelist50000 transmitted an HTTP request at 6:00:00 PM. The second example row460 of the illustrated example of FIG. 4 includes a record thatidentifies that the Apple iPhone associated with the same panelist 50000transmitted an HTTP request at 6:01:23 PM. The third example row 470 ofthe illustrated example of FIG. 4 includes a record that identifies thatthe Apple iPhone associated with the same panelist 50000 transmitted anHTTP request at 6:04:43 PM. The fourth example row 480 of theillustrated example of FIG. 4 includes a record that identifies that theApple iPhone associated with the panelist 50000 transmitted an HTTPrequest at 6:15:39 PM. The first, second, and fourth example rows 450,460, 480 include user agents identifying that the requests wereassociated with an ESPN application. The example HTTP requests of theexample third row 470 includes a user agent identifying that the requestwas associated with an iPhone e-mail application. The example HTTPrequest of fifth example row 490 is associated with a Safari browser.However, the user agent(s) may associate their respective request(s)with any other application such as, for example, a YouTube application,a newsreader application, a browser application, etc. The fifth examplerow 490 of the illustrated example of FIG. 4 includes a record thatindicates that the Apple iPhone associated with the same panelist 50000transmitted an HTTP request at 6:17:42 PM.

As disclosed herein, the example table 400 represents a filtered recordlog that may be processed by the example application identifier 150and/or the example duration calculator 155 to calculate durations ofapplication usage associated with different applications.

While an example manner of implementing the example monitoring system100 is illustrated in FIG. 1, one or more of the elements, processesand/or devices illustrated in FIG. 4 may be combined, divided,re-arranged, omitted, eliminated and/or implemented in any other way.Further, the example registrar 112, the example proxy 115, the exampledata store 120, the example user identifier 135, the example deviceidentifier 140, the example request filter 145, the example applicationidentifier 150, the example duration calculator 155, and/or, moregenerally, the example creditor 130, the example reporter 160, theexample background identifier 175, the example background creditor 180,and/or more generally the example monitoring system 100 of FIG. 1 may beimplemented by hardware, software, firmware and/or any combination ofhardware, software and/or firmware. Thus, for example, any of theexample registrar 112, the example proxy 115, the example data store120, the example user identifier 135, the example device identifier 140,the example request filter 145, the example application identifier 150,the example duration calculator 155 and/or, more generally, the examplecreditor 130, the example reporter 160, the example backgroundidentifier 175, the example background creditor 180 and/or moregenerally the example monitoring system 100 of FIG. 1 could beimplemented by one or more analog or digital circuit(s), logic circuits,programmable processor(s), application specific integrated circuit(s)(ASIC(s)), programmable logic device(s) (PLD(s)) and/or fieldprogrammable logic device(s) (FPLD(s)). When reading any of theapparatus or system claims of this patent to cover a purely softwareand/or firmware implementation, at least one of the example registrar112, the example proxy 115, the example data store 120, the example useridentifier 135, the example device identifier 140, the example requestfilter 145, the example application identifier 150, the example durationcalculator 155, the example creditor 130, the example reporter 160, theexample background identifier 175, and/or the example backgroundcreditor 180 is/are hereby expressly defined to include a tangiblecomputer readable storage device or storage disk such as a memory, adigital versatile disk (DVD), a compact disk (CD), a Blu-ray disk, etc.storing the software and/or firmware. Further still, the examplemonitoring system 100 of FIG. 1 may include one or more elements,processes and/or devices in addition to, or instead of, thoseillustrated in FIG. 1, and/or may include more than one of any or all ofthe illustrated elements, processes and devices.

Flowcharts representative of example machine readable instructions forimplementing the example monitoring system 100 of FIG. 1 are shown inFIGS. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, and/or 13. In these examples, the machinereadable instructions comprise a program(s) for execution by a processorsuch as the processor 1512 shown in the example processor platform 1500discussed below in connection with FIG. 15. The program may be embodiedin software stored on a tangible computer readable storage medium suchas a CD-ROM, a floppy disk, a hard drive, a digital versatile disk(DVD), a Blu-ray disk, or a memory associated with the processor 1512,but the entire program and/or parts thereof could alternatively beexecuted by a device other than the processor 1512 and/or embodied infirmware or dedicated hardware. Further, although the example program isdescribed with reference to the flowchart illustrated in FIGS. 5, 6, 7,8, 9, 11, 12, and/or 13, many other methods of implementing the examplemonitoring system 100 may alternatively be used. For example, the orderof execution of the blocks may be changed, and/or some of the blocksdescribed may be changed, eliminated, or combined.

As mentioned above, the example processes of FIGS. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11,12, and/or 13 may be implemented using coded instructions (e.g.,computer and/or machine readable instructions) stored on a tangiblecomputer readable storage medium such as a hard disk drive, a flashmemory, a read-only memory (ROM), a compact disk (CD), a digitalversatile disk (DVD), a cache, a random-access memory (RAM) and/or anyother storage device or storage disk in which information is stored forany duration (e.g., for extended time periods, permanently, for briefinstances, for temporarily buffering, and/or for caching of theinformation). As used herein, the term tangible computer readablestorage medium is expressly defined to include any type of computerreadable storage device and/or storage disk and to exclude propagatingsignals. As used herein, “tangible computer readable storage medium” and“tangible machine readable storage medium” are used interchangeably.Additionally or alternatively, the example processes of FIGS. 5, 6, 7,8, 9, 11, 12, and/or 13 may be implemented using coded instructions(e.g., computer and/or machine readable instructions) stored on anon-transitory computer and/or machine readable medium such as a harddisk drive, a flash memory, a read-only memory, a compact disk, adigital versatile disk, a cache, a random-access memory and/or any otherstorage device or storage disk in which information is stored for anyduration (e.g., for extended time periods, permanently, for briefinstances, for temporarily buffering, and/or for caching of theinformation). As used herein, the term non-transitory computer readablemedium is expressly defined to include any type of computer readabledevice or disk and to exclude propagating signals. As used herein, whenthe phrase “at least” is used as the transition term in a preamble of aclaim, it is open-ended in the same manner as the term “comprising” isopen ended.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions 500 that may be executed to implement the examplemonitoring system 100 of FIG. 1. The program 500 of FIG. 5 begins whenthe proxy 115 of FIG. 1 receives a request from the mobile device 105(block 505). The proxy 115 proxies a request to Internet contentproviders 170, and stores a record of the request in the data store 120.An example procedure for proxying requests and storing data in the datastore 120 is described in the illustrated example of FIG. 6. Once datais stored in the data store 120, the user identifier 135 of theillustrated example of FIG. 1 identifies a panelist associated with theproxy requests (block 510). In the illustrated example, the useridentifier 135 identifies the panelists by performing a lookup in apanelist identifier table (e.g., the example table 125 of FIG. 1) basedon, for example, a port number of the received request. In someexamples, the user identifier 135 uses information other than the portidentifier (e.g., a port number of the received HTTP request). Forexample, the example user identifier 135 identifies a panelist based ona username and/or password associated with the proxy request.

The device identifier 140 of the illustrated example of FIG. 1identifies the device associated with the proxy request (block 515). Inthe illustrated example, the device identifier 140 identifies the deviceby performing a lookup of registration data and/or device data that isassociated with the port number of the received request. However, anyother method of identifying the device associated with the receivedrequest may additionally or alternatively be used. For example, thedevice identifier 140 may inspect the user agent of the received requestto identify a device from which it was transmitted. In some examples, auser agent of the received request contains information about theoperating system version and/or a hardware version of the devicetransmitting a request. In some examples, identifiers present in theuser agent (e.g., version numbers) may be used to look up a device modelin a lookup table. In some examples, the device identifier 140identifies capabilities and/or features of the mobile device based onthe lookup. For example, the device identifier 140 may identify that themobile device includes, for example, a cellular radio, a sixteengigabyte memory device, etc.

Despite having received device identifying information from the panelist(e.g., a device model such as, for example, an iPhone, an iPad, etc.),in some examples, it is beneficial to understand additional informationabout the device such as, for example, a model number, a size ofavailable memory (e.g., eight gigabytes, sixteen gigabytes, etc.), anoperating system version identifier, etc. Such information may bedifficult to receive from a panelist and/or may be inaccurate if, forexample, the panelist does not remember (or know) which operating systemversion identifier their mobile device is using. In some examples, notall requests transmitted by the mobile device 105 include such deviceidentifying and/or feature identifying data (e.g., a model number, asize of available memory, etc.). However, some applications, such as“App Store” applications (e.g., apple iTunes, Google Play), transmitdevice and/or feature identifying data. App store applications typicallytransmit this information to ensure that a correct version of anapplication to be downloaded and/or installed on the mobile device isretrieved. For example, an application that operates on an iPhone maynot operate correctly on an iPad, an application may require a minimumoperating system version identifier. In some examples, the deviceidentifying and/or feature identifying information may only be includedwhen the HTTP request is transmitted by an “App Store” application ofthe mobile device. In such an example, panelists may be asked toperiodically access the “App Store” application to trigger an HTTPrequest that conveys the device identifying information to themonitoring entity via the user agent. In some examples, the deviceidentifier 140 responds to such an HTTP request by updating a tableassociating device information with a panelist. Such information may beuseful for identifying which devices and/or versions of devices are inuse by panelists.

The example request filter 145 of the illustrated example of FIG. 1 thenfilters the requests stored at block 505 to create a filtered requestlog (block 520). An example filtered request log is shown in FIG. 4. Thefiltered request log does not include HTTP requests that cannot becredited to an application and/or browser. An example method offiltering the stored requests is described below in the illustratedexample of FIG. 7. In some examples, the example request filter 145filters based on one or more properties of an HTTP response (e.g., aresponse to a request made by the mobile device 105 via the proxy 115).Response headers (e.g., an HTTP response header) and/or response bodies(e.g., an HTTP response body) may be analyzed to filter the requests.For example, a content type of a response may be used to filter anassociated request, a response code (e.g., an HTTP status code) may beused to filter an associated request, etc.

In some examples, the example request filterer 145 filters some of thereceived HTTP messages (e.g., HTTP requests and/or HTTP responses) whenthey are received by the proxy 115 to determine whether a recordassociated with the HTTP message should be stored in the data store 120.Filtering the messages when they are received reduces the amount of datathat must be stored in the data store 120, as less HTTP messages may bestored when compared to storing all received HTTP messages. As anadditional benefit, the amount of processing time required topost-process the stored records is reduced, as less records are laterprocessed by the example request filterer 145.

The example application identifier 150 of the illustrated example ofFIG. 1 identifies an application that transmitted each request in thefiltered request log (block 525). In examples disclosed herein, theapplication identifier 150 identifies the application associated witheach request based on a user agent and/or a universal resource locator(URL). However, any other identifier may additionally or alternativelybe used. An example method of identifying the application associatedwith a request is described in the illustrated example of FIG. 8. Insome examples, identifying an application that transmitted the requestis performed at the time that the request is received.

Based on the filtered and identified (e.g., application resolved)requests, the duration calculator 155 credits application(s) withrepresentative usage durations (block 530). In examples disclosedherein, the duration calculator 155 calculates a duration of usage of anapplication executing in the foreground based on differences betweenrecords associated with a same application. An example method ofcalculating a duration of usage of an application is described in theillustrated example of FIG. 9.

Based on the application crediting data, the reporter 160 generates areport (block 535). In the illustrated example, the example reportidentifies application usage across different types of mobile devicesand/or demographics of panelists. For example, the reporter 160 maygenerate a report indicating that a first demographic of user is morelikely to use (and/or purchase) a first application than a seconddemographic. An example report is shown in FIG. 10.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions 600 that may be executed to implement the example proxy 115of FIG. 1. The program of FIG. 6 illustrates an example implementationof block 505 of FIG. 5. The process 600 of FIG. 6 begins at block 605,where the example machine-readable instructions 600 begin execution.First, the proxy 115 waits for content requests (block 605). In theillustrated example, the proxy 115 waits for content requests only onports assigned to a mobile device. However, the proxy 115 may wait forcontent requests on any or all ports. Additionally, the proxy 115 mayinspect the Internet Protocol (IP) address against known range(s) of IPaddresses to determine if the request should be serviced. For example,the known range of IP address may include ranges of IP addresses whichare assigned to a particular Internet service provider and/or carrier.This may, for example, restrict use of the proxy 115 to mobile devices.If the proxy 115 determines that the request did not originate from anIP address within the particular Internet service provider, the proxy115 may ignore the request. In some examples, the proxy 115 inspects auser agent of an incoming request to determine whether the requestshould be serviced. For example, if the user agent is associated with adesktop application (e.g., a desktop browser, etc.), the request may beblocked. Desktop applications do not reflect mobile device activity and,accordingly, should not be allowed to influence monitoring resultsassociated with mobile device activity. In some examples, requestsidentified as having come from a device (rather than an application)that does not reflect mobile device activity (e.g., a request from adesktop computer, a request from an Internet enabled television, etc.)may be blocked.

Next, the proxy 115 receives a content request on a port. Becausemultiple requests for content may be received at substantially the sametime, the proxy 115 may receive a first content request on a first port(block 610) and a second content request on a second port (block 630).In the illustrated example, the content requests are processed inparallel to decrease the amount of time taken to respond to requests.However, the content requests may be processed in any other manner. Forexample, the content requests may be processed serially. The parallelprocessing of any number of requests is represented in FIG. 6 by thesedots “ . . . ”.

Next, the proxy 115 generates second request(s) based on correspondingones of the request received at blocks 610 and 630, to retrieve theInternet content identified in the corresponding content requests(blocks 615 and 635). The proxy 115 also associates the content requestsand/or responses with the corresponding requesting device and stores theassociation in the data store 120 (blocks 620 and 640). In theillustrated example, the proxy 115 associates the first content requestwith the corresponding mobile device using the port number that therequest was received upon. In some examples, the proxy 115 associatesthe response to the request with the corresponding mobile device. Theresponse may include information that may be useful for creditingpurposes (e.g., an HTTP content types, an HTTP status code, an HTTPresponse body such as contents of a webpage, etc.). Since each port isused only by a single mobile device, each mobile device can be uniquelyidentified based on the port number of the port on which a request isreceived. Further, when storing the association in the data store 120,the proxy 115 may store one or more identifier(s) of the port, theclient device, the panelist, etc. In some examples, the application thattransmitted the request is identified and stored in the data store 120at this point, rather than post-processing the received request(s).Additionally, the proxy 115 may store the returned content or a portionof the returned content in the data store 120 (block 620, 640).

The proxy 115 may filter what is stored in the data store. For example,the proxy 115 may only store content requests that request HTTP content,as requests for non-HTTP content may not be parsed properly whenanalyzing the information. As another example, the proxy 115 may omitstyle content (e.g., cascading style sheet (CSS) documents) from beingstored in the data store 120, as style content may be of limited usewhen analyzing the information.

The proxy 115 finishes servicing the request from the client device bytransmitting the requested Internet content to the client device via theport on which the content request was received (blocks 625 and 645). Insome examples, the proxy 115 stores the body of the request. In someother examples, the proxy 115 stores the content of the response to therequest. Control returns to the block 605, where the proxy 115 waits formore content requests (block 605).

FIG. 7 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions 700 that may be executed to implement the example creditor130 of FIG. 1. The program of FIG. 7 illustrates an exampleimplementation of block 520 of FIG. 5. The process 700 of FIG. 7 beginswhen the request filter 145 filters requests stored in the data store.The example request filter 145 applies a blacklist based on universalresource locators (URLs) of the requests stored in the data store 120(block 710). Some URLs are related to non-user initiated activities.Such URLs may include, for example, URLs associated with analytics,tracking, measurement robots, advertisement objects, etc. In someexamples, the request filter 145 only applies the URL filter when aparticular user agent is used (e.g., a user agent associated with abrowser such as, for example Safari). Applying such a two-part filterenables the request filter 145 to remove HTTP requests that are notassociated with actual browsing and/or user activity. In some examples,the filtering happens on the fly such that these requests are notrecorded and/or are deleted almost immediately after they occur.

The example request filter 145 tags requests with user agents related tomobile device system functionality (block 720). Some applications, suchas, location applications, app store applications, email applications,newsreader applications, security processes, etc. transmit requests forcontent automatically (e.g., without user instruction). That is, as aresult of the requests with user agents related to mobile device systemfunctionality, no visual indicators are shown on the mobile devicedisplay. For example, an e-mail application may send a request to ane-mail server to determine whether any new messages are present and/orare to be downloaded. Such a request from an e-mail application mayoccur periodically and/or a periodically and is not necessarilyperformed as a result of user interaction with the mobile device.

The example request filter 145 tags requests directed to advertisementservers (block 730). In the illustrated example, advertisement serversare identified based on a known list of advertising servers. The listmay periodically and/or a-periodically be updated to identify newlyidentified advertisement and/or advertising servers. Advertising trafficprimarily occurs when using a browser (e.g., to view a website thatincludes an advertisement). In the illustrated example, browser records(e.g., HTTP requests that can be identified as being associated with abrowser such as, for example, Safari) should be tagged as related toadvertisement server activity when they are directed to an advertisementserver. For example, browser records may be tagged as advertisementserver activity based on identification of URLs directed to applicationadvertisement servers. Records tagged as related to advertisement serveractivity that identify an application being used may be used to creditapplications and the duration spent using an application.

In the illustrated example, these records are not ignored and, instead,are kept so that they can be included in ad server traffic reporting.However, records tagged as directed to tracking scripts, bots, and/oranalytics scripts are not considered when calculating a duration ofusage of an application as they do not represent user activity.

The example request filter 145 applies a content type filter to removerecords having particular content types (block 740). As described above,advertisement and/or tracking requests (see Blumenau, U.S. Pat. No.6,108,637, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety)are commonly sent when applications are running. In some examples, theadvertisement and/or tracking requests are the only type(s) of requeststhat applications transmit. For example, a game application that doesnot request information from a network resource as part of the gameplayfunctionality may include advertisements (e.g., at the top and/or bottomof the screen). Such advertisements may be requested and categorized asadvertisement traffic based on, for example, a URL to which they weredirected. While it may not be possible to identify applications based onthe advertising traffic (because, in some examples, the advertisingtraffic is generic to multiple applications), knowing that theadvertising traffic occurred factors into how other applications arecredited because, for example, it is known that a game was played whileanother application was not. In some examples, the advertising trafficuses particular content types that must be included in the results fordetermining how long a particular application was executed.

In the illustrated example, a white list is used for filtering contenttypes. That is, requests having a content type that is included on thewhite list are not filtered and/or removed from the HTTP record blogs.In an illustrated example, the whitelist of content types includes, forexample, application/XHTML+XML, application/text/HTML, application/text,application/j son, application/XML, application/binary,application/octet stream, text/vnd.wap.wml, application/PDF,application/MSWord, text/HTML, text/XML, etc. However, any other contenttype(s) may additionally and/or alternatively be used. In theillustrated example, there are some content types that are not includedin the whitelist. For example, the content types text/CSS,text/x-cross-domain-policy, text/javascript, text/x-js, and text/cfg areexample content types that are not included in the whitelist. While inthe illustrated example a white list is used, any other approach forfiltering records management alternately be used such as, for example, ablacklist.

The example request filter 145 applies a port number filter to removerecords having particular port numbers (block 750). As described above,panelists are each assigned a unique port number to use when sendingHTTP requests. The example request filter 145 applies a port numberfilter to remove records that are not associated with a panelist. In theillustrated example, the port number filter is a whitelist includingport numbers that are associated with respective panelists. For example,if no panelist is associated with port 12345, HTTP requests receivedport 12345 may be removed from the HTTP log. In some examples, thefilter is implemented as a blacklist, in that HTTP requests made viaports that are not related to panelist traffic are removed. For example,the example request filter 145 may remove HTTP communications that werereceived via port 80. Port 80 is associated with the HTTP protocol andis not assigned to a panelist. In some examples, when the mobile device105 requests proxy configuration details (e.g., prior to when the mobiledevice is configured to transmit requests via the proxy 115), suchrequests are made via port 80. Because requests for configurationinformation do not represent user activity they can be ignored and/orremoved by the request filter 145.

While in the illustrated example of FIG. 7 the example request filter145 applies a number of different filters (e.g., a port filter 146, auser agent filter 147, a URL filter 148, etc.), any other number and/ortypes of filters may additionally or alternatively be used such as, forexample, a filter based on HTTP status messages, a filter based on aHTTP method (e.g., get, post, etc.), etc.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions 800 that may be executed to implement the example creditor130 of FIG. 1 to identify applications running in a foreground executionmode (e.g., normal crediting mode). The example program 800 of theillustrated example of FIG. 8 illustrates an example implementation ofblock 525 of FIG. 5. The process 800 of FIG. 8 begins when theapplication identifier 150 receives an HTTP request including a useragent. In the illustrated example, the application identifier 150inspects the requests stored in the filtered request log (e.g., in thedata store 120). In the illustrated example, the application identifier150 determines whether the user agent of the HTTP request explicitlyidentifies an application (block 805). In some examples, the user agentincludes a name of an application that transmitted the associated HTTPrequest. For example, a siriusXM application may include the namesiriusXM within the user agent. In the illustrated example of FIG. 4,row 490 includes an HTTP request that expressly indicates that therequest came from Apple® Safari®. If the user agent explicitlyidentifies the application (block 805), the application identifier 150identifies the application based on the user agent (block 815). If theuser agent does not explicitly identify the application (block 805), theexample application identifier determines if the user agent is impliedlyidentifies the application (block 810). In some examples, the user agentdoes not directly include a name of an application with which it isassociated. For example, an ESPN application may include a name of“SportCenter” within the user agent. That is, the user agent, while notdirectly identifying the name of the application, may indirectlyidentify the application by use of an alternate name. In the illustratedexample of FIG. 4, rows 450, 460, 480 includes an HTTP request thatimpliedly indicates that the request came from the ESPN application. Inthe illustrated example, the application is identified by performing alook up of alternate names based on an alternate name table.Additionally or alternatively, the user agent may correspond to a useragent pattern that has been identified as being used by a particularapplication (e.g., empirically and/or as specified by an applicationdeveloper). If the user agent impliedly and/or indirectly identifies anapplication (block 810), the application identifier 150 identifies theapplication based on the user agent (block 815).

In some examples, the user agent may not include a name that directlyand/or indirectly identifies the application that transmitted theassociated HTTP request (blocks 805, 810). In such an example, theapplication identifier 150 determines if the user agent is a genericuser agent (block 820). For example, some applications use a standardapplication programming interface (API) and/or software development kit(SDK) (e.g., webkit) which, when used, sets a default user agentidentifying the API and/or SDK. In some examples, it may be possible toidentify the application based on other parameters of the HTTP request(e.g., a URL), despite the generic user agent. If the user agent of theHTTP request is not generic (block 820), and the user agent does notimpliedly and/or explicitly identify the associated application (blocks805, 810), the application identifier 150 ignores the record associatedwith the HTTP request (block 825). In examples disclosed herein, whenthe record is ignored (block 825), a duration of presentation is notcalculated for the application. However, the record is not excluded fromthe log as it may indicate that the user switched from one applicationto another.

If the user agent does not identify the application (blocks 805, 810),but instead is generic block 820, the example application identifier 150determines whether the application can be identified via a universalresource locator of the request block 830. An application may be knownto transmit requests to a particular URL. For example, a sportsapplication may routinely transmit request to a sports website and/orwebserver. Identifying that the request is sent to the sports websiteand/or webserver may identify the application that transmitted therequest. In the illustrated example, the application is identified byperforming a lookup against a table associating URLs and/or domain namesthat are associated with a particular application. Accordingly, if theexample application identifier 150 can identify the application based onthe URL of the associated HTTP request, the application identifier 150identifies the application based on the user agent and universalresource locator combination (e.g., the generic user agent and the URL)(block 835).

If the application cannot be identified by URL of the request (block830), the application identifier 150 determines if any other identifiedapplication exists within a previous time window (block 840). In theillustrated example the application identifier 150 uses a previous timewindow of fifteen minutes. However, any other time window mayadditionally or alternatively be used. In the illustrated example, theapplication identifier 150 determines that other identified applicationexists by comparing the user agent of the instant request with previousrequests to identify HTTP requests that are associated with the sameuser agent. User agents of applications do not typically change. Thatis, applications do not typically change their user agent unless achange to the application is also made. For example, a user agent maychange when an application is upgraded from a first version (using afirst user agent) to a second version (using a second user agentdifferent from the first user agent). As a further example, the firstversion of the application will typically only use the first user agent.Accordingly, HTTP request that include a user agent other than the useragent of the instant record are not likely to have come from the sameapplication. If the example application identifier 150 identifies anHTTP request with the previous time window that used a same user agent(block 840), the example application identifier 150 identifies theapplication of the instant HTTP request as the same application as theHTTP request in the previous time window. If no previous request isidentified (block 840), the example application identifier 150 ignoresthe record (block 825). In examples disclosed herein, when the record isignored (block 825), it is not included in the duration calculationdescribed in connection with FIG. 9.

In examples disclosed in FIG. 8, the application identifier 150 parseseach filtered request in the filtered request log created by the requestfilter 145. That is, the example process 800 of the illustrated exampleof the FIG. 8 is performed for each record in the filtered request log.As an outcome of the application identification process, each record isidentified as either “app resolved,” “unknown,” or “ignored”. Appresolved records represent records where an application associated withthe HTTP request is identified. In contrast, unknown and/or ignoredrecords represent records where the application associated with the HTTPrequest cannot be identified.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions 900 that may be executed to implement the example creditor130 of FIG. 1 to credit applications executing in a foreground executionmode (e.g., a normal crediting mode). The example process 900 of theillustrated example of FIG. 9 illustrates an example implementation ofblock 530 of FIG. 5. FIGS. 9A, 9B, 9C, 9D, and 9E illustrate exampleforeground execution timelines 960, 970, 980, 990, 994 of HTTP requeststhat may be credited by the example creditor 130 of FIG. 1. The exampleprocess 900 of FIG. 9 is described with respect to the exampleforeground execution timelines 960, 970, 980, 990, 994 of FIGS. 9A, 9B,9C, 9D, and 9E. The example events of FIG. 9A correspond to the exampletable 400 of FIG. 4. The examples of FIGS. 9B, 9C, 9D, and 9E, whilesimilar to the example table 400, do not represent the example table400. Rather, FIGS. 9B, 9C, 9D, and 9E represent alternative timelines.

The process 900 of FIG. 9 begins when the application identifier 150 hasidentified applications associated with the HTTP request in the filteredrequest log. The example duration calculator 155 begins parsing thefiltered request log (e.g., the filtered request log 400 of FIG. 4) byidentifying a first time associated with a first occurrence of a firstapplication (block 905). Example first times are shown in FIGS. 9A, 9B,9C, and 9D as times 961, 971, 981, and 991. With respect to the exampleof FIG. 9A, the first time 961 is identified by performing a lookup of atimestamp associated with the HTTP request in the example table 400 ofFIG. 4 (e.g., the timestamp column 430). In the illustrated example, theduration calculator 155 identifies the first chronologically applicationresolved record from a particular application. In examples disclosedherein, the mobile device 105 only allows one application to be executedat once. However, some mobile devices allow more than one application tobe executed at a time.

The example duration calculator 155 then identifies a second timeassociated with a second occurrence of the first application (block910). The second time represents the last occurrence of the sameidentified application of the first time. In the illustrated example,the second time is identified when there are no application resolved(e.g., “app resolved”) records from another application having a time ofoccurrence between the first time and the second time. If, for example,a record from another application were stored in between the first timein the second time, that intermediate record might indicate that theuser switched from a first application to a second application, and thenback to the first application. With respect to FIGS. 9A, 9B, 9C, and 9D,a second time is shown as times 966, 972, 981, and 992. In examplesdisclosed herein, the second application may be a resolved applicationand/or an unknown application. In some examples, the duration calculator155 identifies the second time only when there are no consecutiverecords between the first time and the second time whose time differenceis more than a threshold. For example, in FIG. 9C, the record 981 at6:00:00 PM is more than fifteen minutes away from the record 982 at6:15:39 PM. Accordingly, the record 981 is identified as both the firsttime and the second time. In the illustrated example, the threshold isfifteen minutes, however any other threshold may additionally oralternatively be used. Identifying gaps in the HTTP request log isimportant because such gaps indicate user inactivity.

The example duration calculator 155 then identifies a third timeassociated with a first application resolved record following the secondtime. The application associated with the third time is not the same asthe application associated with the first time. With continued respectto the example 980 of FIG. 9C, the record 982 at 6:15:39 PM representsthe same application (e.g., ESPN) as the record 981 at 6:00:00 PM and,accordingly, the record 982 is not identified as the third time. Thatis, the third time represents a time at which the user transitions froma first application to a second application. In some examples, thetransition to the second application occurs sometime after a final HTTPrequest of the first application is transmitted. However, in someexamples, the first HTTP request transmitted by the second applicationoccurs upon a launch of the second application. That is, in someexamples, the first application was presented until the third time. Withrespect to the example 970 of FIG. 9B, the record 974 at 6:04:43 PM isassociated with a different application than the record 972 (which isidentified as the second time), and accordingly, the record 974 at6:04:43 is identified as the third time.

In some examples, the third time may not be defined. That is, no recordsmay exist after the second time. With respect to the examples 980, 990of FIGS. 9C and 9D, no records are identified as the third time. In theillustrated example, the example duration calculator 155 determineswhether the third time is defined (block 920). The illustrated exampleof FIG. 9C shows an example where a third time is not defined. If thethird time is not defined (block 920), the duration calculator 155determines that the first time is different from the second time (block925). If the first time is different than the second time (block 925),the duration calculator 155 credits and application associated with thefirst time with a duration of presentation equal to the differencebetween the second time and the first time (block 930). In theillustrated example of FIG. 9D, the first time is different from thesecond time (for both instances of HTTP records 991, 992) and a thirdtime is not defined. Accordingly, the record 991 is credited with apresentation duration 993 equal to the difference between the first timeand the second time.

If the first time is not different from the second time (e.g., the firsttime and the second time are both associated with a same HTTP request),the example duration calculator 155 credits the first application with aminimal presentation duration. In the illustrated example of FIG. 9C,the first time is not different from the second time (for both instancesof HTTP records 981, 982) and a third time is not defined. Accordingly,the record 981 is credited with a minimal presentation duration 984. Inthe illustrated example, the minimal presentation duration is oneminute. However, any other minimal presentation duration mayadditionally or alternatively be used such as, for example, thirtyseconds, ten seconds, two minutes, etc.

Referring back to block 920, if the third time is defined, the durationcalculator 155 calculates the difference between the third time and thefirst time (block 940). The illustrated examples of FIGS. 9A and 9B showexample timelines 960, 970 where a third time is defined. The durationcalculator 155 then determines if the difference between the third timeand the first time (calculated in block 940) is greater than a threshold(block 945). In the illustrated example, the threshold is fifteenminutes. However, any other threshold may additionally or alternativelybe used. If the difference between the third time and the first time isgreater than the threshold (block 945), the example duration calculator155 credits the first application with the duration equal to thedifference between the second time and the first time (block 950). Withrespect to the illustrated example of FIG. 9A, the difference betweenthe first time (record 961) and the third time (record 968) is greaterthan the threshold. Accordingly, the application associated with thefirst record 961 (e.g., the ESPN application) is credited with aduration of presentation 969 of fifteen minutes and thirty-nine seconds.In the illustrated example, if it takes more than a threshold amount oftime from the time that a first HTTP request was received from the firstapplication to the time that a request was received from anotherapplication, it is assumed that the user left the first application andis no longer interacting with the first application. To account forthis, the last known time (e.g., the second time) that the applicationwas active is used to calculate the presentation duration. If thedifference between the third time and the first time is not greater thanthe threshold (block 945), the example duration calculator 155 creditsthe first application with a duration equal to the difference betweenthe third time and the first time (block 955). With respect to theillustrated example of 9B, the difference between the first time (record971) and the third time (record 974) is not greater than the threshold.Accordingly, the application associated with the first record 971 iscredited with a duration of presentation 975 of four minutes andforty-two seconds.

In examples disclosed herein, the example duration calculator 155processes each record to determine a presentation duration associatedwith the application of the record/HTTP request. In the illustratedexample, the example duration calculator 155 only processes records thatare resolved to a particular application (e.g., “app resolved”).However, in some examples, the duration calculator 155 determines apresentation duration for unknown applications. In some examples, theunknown application is assigned a minimal unknown presentation durationof one second. The minimal unknown presentation duration ensures thatthe reporter 160 is able to identify records that were not applicationresolved and/or to call out non-generic user agents that have not yetbeen identified. In some other examples, applications using non-genericuser agents (e.g., unidentified applications) are credited as unknownapplication specific user agents. An identity of these non-generic useragents can be determined at a later time (e.g., manually).

In some examples, application resolved records may be associated with anApp Store application (e.g., Apple iTunes, Google Play, etc.). In someexamples, the App Store application is invoked within anotherapplication to, for example, enable a user to purchase anotherapplication (e.g., some free applications allow a user to purchase afull version of the application), and/or enable a user to purchaseapplication features and/or items (e.g., within a game). In someexamples, these App Store application records do not indicate that theuser left the application invoking the App Store but, rather indicatethat App Store information was requested by the application. In someexamples, if records that are application resolved to the App Storeapplication are observed within a threshold time period from recordsthat are application resolved to the App Store application, the AppStore application records may be ignored. In the illustrated example ofFIG. 9B, the app store record 973 is ignored as it likely representsin-application offerings made by the ESPN application.

As described above, records that are associated with e-mail applicationsare filtered out by the request filter 145. However, in some examples,the request may not be filtered and, instead, may be tagged as beingassociated with an e-mail application. FIG. 9E illustrates an exampletimeline 994 where multiple e-mail application records 995, 996, 997,998, 999 that would otherwise be ignored are credited with apresentation duration 989. In some examples, monitoring entities areinterested to understand how users interact with e-mail applications ona mobile device. Ignoring and/or filtering records that are associatedwith the e-mail application may prevent such an analysis. Accordingly,in some examples, the e-mail application records are identified suchthat the e-mail application may be credited with a presentationduration. However, besides being displayed, the e-mail application maytransmit requests in the background of the device and, accordingly, mayinterfere with application crediting. Accordingly, the example durationcalculator 155 of the illustrated example identifies e-mail applicationrecords only when a threshold number of records are consecutivelyincluded in the request log. In the illustrated example, the thresholdnumber of consecutive records is five. However, any other thresholdnumber may additionally or alternatively be used. The presence of thethreshold number of records indicate the user is actively using thee-mail application, and a duration of the e-mail application may becalculated by the duration calculator 155.

While the examples disclosed herein are described with respect tocrediting an application executed by the mobile device 105, any othertype of crediting may additionally and or alternatively occur. Forexample, the duration calculator 155 may credit different URLs (e.g.,websites) based on the HTTP records. For example, browser applicationssuch as a browser application 215 of the illustrated example FIG. 2 aretypically used to request websites from a wide range of domains. Whilecrediting the browser applications 215 is important, it may also beimportant to understand which websites the user visited while using abrowser application 215. Accordingly the duration calculator 155 maycredit different domains (e.g., websites) based on the HTTP recordsreceived via the proxy 115.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example report 1000 that may be created by theexample reporter 160 of FIG. 1. The example report 1000 illustratesusage statistics of different types of applications across agedemographics. In the illustrated example, the report 1000 shows usagedurations of streaming media applications 1002, social mediaapplications 1004, and news reader applications 1006 for users agessixteen to twenty-four 1020, ages twenty-five to forty 1022, and agesforty-one to sixty-five 1024. While in the illustrated example, theexample report 1000 is based on application type and age, any otherfactors may additionally or alternatively be used such as, for example,race, geographic location, income, etc. In the illustrated example, theexample report 1000 shows average usage durations over a period of oneday. That is, durations of individual application sessions areaggregated by the reporter 160 and reported as a total time of use.However, any other duration and/or statistic may additionally oralternatively be used such as, for example, a number of times anapplication was opened, an average duration of an individual session ofan application, etc.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions 1100 that may be executed to implement the examplebackground identifier 175 of FIG. 1 and/or to enter a backgroundcrediting mode. The example instructions 1100 of FIG. 11 may be executedwhen a set of event records representative of user activity has beencollected from a device such as the mobile device 105 of FIG. 1.

The example background identifier 175 selects a record to be credited(block 1105). For example, the background identifier 175 may select theearliest unprocessed record based on timestamps of the unprocessedrecord. The example background identifier 175 determines whether theselected record is associated with a privileged application (block1110). For example, the background identifier 175 may determine whetherthe record includes a URL corresponding to an HTTP request from anapplication that is permitted to execute in the background of the device105 (e.g., whether the URL is a designated URL for backgroundexecution). Whether a URL is a designated URL or a non-designated URLmay be determined by looking up the URL in a lookup table (e.g., in thedata store 120). The lookup table may be constructed and/or modifiedbased on, for example, a specification from a developer of theapplication and/or based on empirical observations of execution of theapplication in foreground execution and/or background execution.

If the selected record is associated with a privileged application(block 1110), the example background identifier 175 determines whetherthe selected record includes a designated URL type or request type(block 1115). For example, designated URLs are determined to originatefrom a privileged application when the application is executing in thebackground. If the selected record includes a designated URL type orrequest type (block 1115), the example background identifier 175determines whether the timestamp of the closest previous record for theprivileged application is less than a threshold time prior to thetimestamp of the selected record (block 1120). For example, thethreshold may be an event length threshold specifying an upper amount oftime between events for the privileged application to be consideredexecuting in background mode.

If the timestamp of the closest previous record for the privilegedapplication is less than a threshold time prior to the timestamp of theselected record (block 1120), the example background identifier 175determines whether the closest previous record for the privilegedapplication is within a foreground execution session of anotherapplication (block 1125). For example, the background identifier 175 maydetermine whether another application-resolved record has occurred priorto the closest previous record such that the foreground application isconsidered to be executing in the foreground.

If the closest previous record for the privileged application is withina foreground execution session of another application (block 1125), theexample background identifier 175 causes the background creditor 180 toenter a background crediting mode (block 1130). The example backgroundcreditor 180 may then initiate a second crediting timeline to credit theprivileged application executing in the background in addition tocrediting foreground application(s) that are executed simultaneously.Example instructions to implement block 1130 are described withreference to FIG. 13. Control may then be passed to the instructions1200 of FIG. 12 and/or the instructions 1300 of FIG. 13 to credit abackground application and to determine whether to exit backgroundcrediting.

If the selected record is not associated with a privileged application(block 1110), the selected record does not include a designated URL typeor request type (block 1115), the timestamp of the closest previousrecord for the privileged application is at least the threshold timeprior to the timestamp of the selected record (block 1120), or theclosest previous record for the privileged application is not within aforeground execution session of another application (block 1125), theexample background identifier 175 does not enter background creditingmode and the record is credited in normal crediting mode (block 1135).Example instructions to perform crediting in normal crediting mode aredescribed above with reference to FIG. 9. Control returns to block 1105to select a next record.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions 1200 that may be executed to implement the examplebackground identifier 175 of FIG. 1 to exit a background crediting mode.The example instructions 1200 of FIG. 12 may be executed when a set ofevent records representative of user activity is being analyzed by thebackground creditor 180 in a background crediting mode. In the exampleof FIG. 12, a privileged application has been designated a backgroundapplication based on, for example, executing the instructions 1100 ofFIG. 11.

The example background identifier 175 of FIG. 1 selects a record to beanalyzed (block 1205). For example, the background identifier 175 mayselect a record that is being analyzed for crediting by the backgroundcreditor 180. The example background identifier 175 determines whetherthe selected record is associated with a different privilegedapplication than the current background application (block 1210). Forexample, receiving a record from another privileged application mayindicate that the background application has been stopped. If theselected record is not associated with a different privilegedapplication than the current background application (block 1210), theexample background identifier 175 determines whether the selected recordincludes a non-designated URL for the background application (block1215). For example, a non-designated URL may indicate that thebackground application is executing in foreground execution and is nolonger executing in background mode.

If the selected record does not include a non-designated URL for thebackground application (e.g., includes a designated URL) (block 1215),the example background identifier 175 determines whether a time betweenthe selected record and a closest prior record for the backgroundapplication is greater than a threshold (block 1220). For example, alength of time between records for the background application longerthan an event length may indicate that the background application hasstopped or paused execution.

If the time between the selected record and a closest prior record forthe background application is not greater than a threshold (block 1220),the example background identifier 175 of FIG. 1 determines whether theselected record indicates an application having a superseding resourcedemand has been executed (block 1225). For example, a record mayindicate that another (e.g., a foreground) application has issued arequest including a URL or User Agent that indicates that a resourcerequirement of the foreground application will supersede the resourcerequirements of the background application. If the selected record doesnot indicate that an application having a superseding resource demandhas been executed (block 1225), the example background identifier 175 ofFIG. 1 determines whether the record is a last record (e.g., in a fileof event records) (block 1230).

If the record is not a last record (block 1230), the example backgroundcreditor 180 of FIG. 1 credits the record in a background crediting mode(block 1235). For example, the background creditor 180 may credit therecord according to, for example, the instructions 1300 of FIG. 13.Control returns to block 1205 to select a next record.

If the selected record is associated with a different privilegedapplication than the current background application (block 1210), theselected record includes a non-designated URL for the backgroundapplication (block 1215), the time between the selected record and aclosest prior record for the background application is greater than athreshold (block 1220), the selected record indicates an applicationhaving a superseding resource demand has been executed (block 1225), orthe selected record is the last record (block 1230), the examplebackground identifier 175 of FIG. 1 exits the background crediting mode(block 1240). In the example of FIG. 12, crediting may occur in normalcrediting mode using, for example, the instructions 900 of FIG. 9. Theexample instructions 1200 then end and/or control returns to theinstructions 1100 of FIG. 11 to determine whether to enter a backgroundcrediting mode.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart representative of example machine-readableinstructions 1300 that may be executed to implement the examplebackground creditor 180 of FIG. 1 to credit applications executing in abackground execution mode. The example instructions 1300 may be executedin response to the background identifier 175 initiating a backgroundcrediting mode (e.g., block 1130 of FIG. 11). In some examples, theinstructions 1300 are executed in parallel with the instructions 1200 ofFIG. 12, and execution of the instructions 1300 may be halted based onexecution of the instructions 1200.

The example background creditor 180 of FIG. 1 selects a record (block1305). The record may be an event record that has an earliest timestampof event records in a file. The example background creditor 180determines whether the record is a first background record for theprivileged (e.g., background) application (block 1310). For example, thebackground creditor 180 may determine whether the selected record has adesignated URL and is a first record being processed in the currentiteration of the background crediting mode for the backgroundapplication.

If the record is the first background application record (block 1310),the example background creditor 180 determines whether a time from theselected record to a first time for an application being credited viaforeground crediting (e.g., a foreground application session initiation,a start of a foreground application, etc.) is less than or equal to anevent length (block 1315). If the time from the selected record to afirst time for an application being credited via foreground crediting isless than or equal to the event length (block 1315), the examplebackground creditor 180 credits to the selected record a time equal tothe difference between the time of the selected record and the starttime of the current foreground application session (block 1320).

On the other hand, if the time from the selected record to a first timefor an application being credited via foreground crediting is greaterthan the event length (block 1315), the example background creditor 180credits zero time to the selected record (block 1325). After creditingtime to the selected first background application record (block 1320) orcrediting zero time to the first background application record (block1325), control returns to block 1305 to select a next record.

If the selected record is not the first record for the backgroundapplication (block 1310), the example background creditor 180 determineswhether the selected record is a subsequent background applicationrecord (block 1330). For example, the background creditor 180 maydetermine whether the selected record has a designated URL and a firstrecord for the background application has been processed in the currentiteration of the background crediting mode. If the selected record is asubsequent background application record (block 1330), the examplebackground creditor 180 of FIG. 1 credits the selected record with atime difference between the most recent preceding background applicationrecord and the selected record (block 1335). Control then returns toblock 1305 to select a next record.

If the selected record is not a background application record (block1330), the example background creditor 180 does not credit the selectedrecord, and the selected record may be credited in a normal creditingmode (block 1340). The example normal crediting mode may be implementedusing the example instructions 900 of FIG. 9. Control then returns toblock 1305 to select a next record.

The example instructions 1300 may be halted at any time by the examplebackground identifier 175 executing the instructions 1200 and/or haltingthe background crediting mode. Until the example background identifier175 halts the instructions 1300, the example instructions 1300 of FIG.13 iterate to select and credit the records.

FIG. 14A is a table 1400 illustrating example events R1-R14 that may beprocessed by the example creditor 130 and/or the example backgroundcreditor 180 of FIG. 1 to credit applications executing in a backgroundexecution mode. Each of the example events R1-R14 of FIG. 14 includes atime stamp 1405 and an event description 1410. The example creditor 130and/or the background creditor 180 of FIG. 1 further determine aforeground application 1415, a background application 1420, and timedurations 1425-1440 to be credited to various example applications(e.g., a Pandora Internet radio application 1425, a Safari web browserapplication 1430, a CNN news application 1435, and a New York Times newsapplication 1440). FIG. 14B illustrates example foreground andbackground crediting timelines 1445, 1450 representative of the exampleevent records of FIG. 14A. In the example of FIGS. 14A-14B, the Pandoraapplication is a privileged application and an event length isconsidered to be 5 minutes.

At time 10:00, the example Pandora applications starts in the foreground(event R1, time 1452 of FIG. 14B). At time 10:05, an Internet radiostation is selected in Pandora (e.g., in foreground execution) and musicstarts (event R2, time 1454 of FIG. 14B). At time 10:06, the exampleSafari browser application starts and executes in the foreground and, asa result, the Pandora application continues execution as a backgroundapplication (event R3, time 1456 of FIG. 14B). The example creditor 130credits the duration 1425 that the Pandora application was in theforeground (e.g., the time from event R1 to the event R3, or 6 minutes).

The example background identifier 175 detects the Pandora applicationexecuting in the background and the background creditor 180 determinesthat the event R3 (e.g., an event record corresponding to the event R3)is a first record of the background application (e.g., block 1310 ofFIG. 13).

At times 10:08 and 10:11, audio URLs (e.g., designated URLs for thebackground execution of the Pandora application) are identified (eventsR4 and R5, times 1458, 1460 of FIG. 14B). The times between the audioURLs is less than the designated event length (e.g., 5 minutes), so thebackground identifier 175 continues background crediting mode (e.g.,does not stop background crediting mode).

At time 10:12, the CNN application is started in the foreground and theSafari application is ended or suspended from foreground execution(event R6, time 1462 of FIG. 14B). The example creditor 130 credits theduration 1430 to the Safari application, while the background creditor180 continues to maintain the independent background timeline 1450.

At times 10:14 and 10:17, audio URLs (e.g., designated URLs for thebackground execution of the Pandora application) are identified (eventsR7 and R8, times 1464, 1466 of FIG. 14B). The times between the audioURLs is less than the designated event length (e.g., 5 minutes), so thebackground identifier 175 continues background crediting mode (e.g.,does not stop background crediting mode).

At time 10:20, the New York Times news application is started in theforeground and the CNN application is ended or suspended from foregroundexecution (event R9, time 1468 of FIG. 14B). The example creditor 130credits the duration 1435 to the CNN application, while the backgroundcreditor 180 continues to maintain the independent background timeline1450.

At times 10:21, 10:25, and 10:28, audio URLs (e.g., designated URLs forthe background execution of the Pandora application) are identified(events R10, R11, and R12, times 1470, 1472, 1474 of FIG. 14B). Thetimes between the audio URLs is less than the designated event length(e.g., 5 minutes), so the background identifier 175 continues backgroundcrediting mode (e.g., does not stop background crediting mode).

At time 10:30, the example Pandora application is executed in theforeground (e.g., ends background execution mode) and the New York Timesapplication is ended or suspended from foreground execution (event R13,time 1476 of FIG. 14B). The example creditor 130 credits the duration1440 to the New York Times application. The example backgroundidentifier 175 identifies the non-designated URL corresponding to theevent R13 and ends background crediting mode. The example backgroundcreditor 180 may then credit the duration between events R3 and R12(e.g., while Pandora was executing in the background) to the Pandoraapplication. The example background creditor 180 further credits anadditional minute to the Pandora application to account for thetransition between the background and the foreground execution.

At time 10:40, the example YouTube application is executed in theforeground (event R14, time 1478). The example YouTube application hasresource requirements that supersede the audio resource requirements ofthe Pandora application. If the Pandora application was open in thebackground subsequent to event R13, the example Pandora application isclosed. The example background identifier 175 may detect the supersedingresource requirements and end a background crediting mode. The examplecreditor 130 credits the time the Pandora application executed in theforeground.

FIG. 15 is a block diagram of an example processor platform 1500 capableof executing the instructions of FIGS. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, and/or 13to implement the example monitoring system 100 of FIG. 1. The processorplatform 1500 can be, for example, a server, a personal computer, amobile device (e.g., a cell phone, a smart phone, a tablet such as aniPad™), a personal digital assistant (PDA), an Internet appliance, a DVDplayer, a CD player, a digital video recorder, a Blu-ray player, agaming console, a personal video recorder, a set top box, or any othertype of computing device.

The processor platform 1500 of the illustrated example includes aprocessor 1512. The processor 1512 of the illustrated example ishardware. For example, the processor 1512 can be implemented by one ormore integrated circuits, logic circuits, microprocessors or controllersfrom any desired family or manufacturer.

The processor 1512 of the illustrated example includes a local memory1513 (e.g., a cache). The processor 1512 of the illustrated example isin communication with a main memory including a volatile memory 1514 anda non-volatile memory 1516 via a bus 1518. The volatile memory 1514 maybe implemented by Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM),Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), RAMBUS Dynamic Random Access Memory(RDRAM) and/or any other type of random access memory device. Thenon-volatile memory 1516 may be implemented by flash memory and/or anyother desired type of memory device. Access to the main memory 1514,1516 is controlled by a memory controller.

The processor platform 1500 of the illustrated example also includes aninterface circuit 1520. The interface circuit 1520 may be implemented byany type of interface standard, such as an Ethernet interface, auniversal serial bus (USB), and/or a PCI express interface.

In the illustrated example, one or more input devices 1522 are connectedto the interface circuit 1520. The input device(s) 1522 permit(s) a userto enter data and commands into the processor 1512. The input device(s)can be implemented by, for example, an audio sensor, a microphone, acamera (still or video), a keyboard, a button, a mouse, a touchscreen, atrack-pad, a trackball, isopoint and/or a voice recognition system.

One or more output devices 1524 are also connected to the interfacecircuit 1520 of the illustrated example. The output devices 1524 can beimplemented, for example, by display devices (e.g., a light emittingdiode (LED), an organic light emitting diode (OLED), a liquid crystaldisplay, a cathode ray tube display (CRT), a touchscreen, a tactileoutput device, a light emitting diode (LED), a printer and/or speakers).The interface circuit 1520 of the illustrated example, thus, typicallyincludes a graphics driver card, a graphics driver chip or a graphicsdriver processor.

The interface circuit 1520 of the illustrated example also includes acommunication device such as a transmitter, a receiver, a transceiver, amodem and/or network interface card to facilitate exchange of data withexternal machines (e.g., computing devices of any kind) via a network1526 (e.g., an Ethernet connection, a digital subscriber line (DSL), atelephone line, coaxial cable, a cellular telephone system, etc.).

The processor platform 1500 of the illustrated example also includes oneor more mass storage devices 1528 for storing software and/or data.Examples of such mass storage devices 1528 include floppy disk drives,hard drive disks, compact disk drives, Blu-ray disk drives, RAIDsystems, and digital versatile disk (DVD) drives.

The coded instructions 1532 of FIGS. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, and/or 13may be stored in the mass storage device 1528, in the volatile memory1514, in the non-volatile memory 1516, and/or on a removable tangiblecomputer readable storage medium such as a CD or DVD.

Although certain example methods, apparatus and articles of manufacturehave been disclosed herein, the scope of coverage of this patent is notlimited thereto. On the contrary, this patent covers all methods,apparatus and articles of manufacture fairly falling within the scope ofthe claims of this patent.

1. A method for monitoring mobile Internet usage, the method comprising:identifying, by executing an instruction with a processor, anapplication associated with a request for Internet content, the requestsent at an identified time; determining, by executing an instructionwith the processor, that the application is operating in a backgroundmode at the identified time by identifying a uniform resource location(URL) corresponding to the request, the URL included in the request whenthe application is operating in the background mode; and crediting, byexecuting an instruction with the processor, the Internet content as abackground application when the application is operating in thebackground mode at the identified time.
 2. The method as described inclaim 1, wherein determining that the application is operating in thebackground mode at the identified time by identifying the URLcorresponding to the request includes: identifying the URL correspondingto the request; comparing the URL to a plurality of URLs, the pluralityof URLs corresponding to requests from the application when theapplication is operating in the background mode; and when the URLmatches one of the plurality of URLs, determine that the application isoperating in the background mode.
 3. The method as described in claim 1,wherein the application is a first application, the determining that thefirst application is operating in the background mode includingdetermining that a record for the first application occurs within a timeperiod associated with a foreground execution session of a secondapplication.
 4. The method as described in claim 1, wherein determiningthat the application is operating in the background mode includesdetermining that a time between an event and a previous event for theapplication is less than an event length threshold.
 5. The method asdescribed in claim 1, wherein the application is a first application,further including crediting a second application independently ofcrediting the first application, the second application operating in aforeground mode while the first application operating in the backgroundmode.
 6. The method as described in claim 1, further includingdetermining that the application has stopped running in the backgroundmode, and crediting the application as a foreground application based onthe determining that the application has stopped running in thebackground mode.
 7. The method as described in claim 6, wherein theapplication is a first application, the determining that the firstapplication has stopped running in the background mode includingdetermining that an event is associated with a second application, thesecond application being a privileged application.
 8. The method asdescribed in claim 6, wherein the request is a first request, thedetermining that the application has stopped running in the backgroundmode including determining that an event includes a second requestcorresponding to foreground execution of the application.
 9. The methodas described in claim 6, wherein the determining that the applicationhas stopped running in the background mode includes determining that atime between an event and a previous event is greater than an eventlength threshold.
 10. The method as described in claim 6, wherein thedetermining that the application has stopped running in the backgroundmode includes determining that an event corresponds to a resource demandthat supersedes a resource demand of the application.
 11. The method asdescribed in claim 1, wherein the application is a first application,the crediting of the first application as the background applicationincluding crediting a time duration between the request and a previousevent corresponding to a start time of a second application executing ina foreground execution mode.
 12. The method as described in claim 1,wherein the crediting of the application as the background applicationincludes crediting a time duration between the request and a previousevent corresponding to background execution of the application when thetime duration is less than an event length threshold.
 13. An apparatuscomprising: an application identifier to identify an applicationassociated with a request for Internet content, the request sent at anidentified time; a background identifier to determine that theapplication is operating in a background mode at the identified time byidentifying a uniform resource location (URL) corresponding to therequest, the URL included in the request when the application isoperating in the background mode; and a background creditor to creditthe Internet content as a background application when the application isoperating in the background mode at the identified time.
 14. Theapparatus as described in claim 13, wherein the background identifier isto determine that the application is operating in the background mode atthe identified time by identifying the URL corresponding to the requestby: identifying the URL corresponding to the request; comparing the URLto a plurality of URLs, the plurality of URLs corresponding to requestsfrom the application when the application is operating in the backgroundmode; and when the URL matches one of the plurality of URLs, determinethat the application is operating in the background mode.
 15. Theapparatus as defined in claim 13, wherein the application is a firstapplication, the background identifier to determine that the firstapplication is operating in the background mode by determining that arecord for the first application occurs concurrently with a foregroundexecution session of a second application.
 16. The apparatus as definedin claim 13, wherein the background identifier is to determine that theapplication is operating in the background mode by determining that atime between an event and a previous event for the application is lessthan an event length threshold.
 17. The apparatus as defined in claim13, wherein the application is a first application, further including aduration calculator to credit a second application executing in aforeground mode, the duration calculator to credit the secondapplication independently of the background creditor crediting the firstapplication.
 18. The apparatus as defined in claim 13, wherein thebackground identifier is to determine that the application has stoppedrunning in the background mode, and further including a durationcalculator to credit the application as a foreground application bydetermining that the application has stopped running in the backgroundmode.
 19. The apparatus as described in claim 18, wherein theapplication is a first application, the background identifier todetermine that the first application has stopped running in thebackground mode by determining that an event is associated with a secondapplication, the second application being a privileged application. 20.(canceled)
 21. (canceled)
 22. (canceled)
 23. (canceled)
 24. (canceled)25. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprisingcomputer readable instructions which, when executed, cause a processorto at least: identify an application associated with a request forInternet content, the request sent at an identified time; determine thatthe application is operating in a background mode at the identified timeby identifying a uniform resource location (URL) corresponding to therequest, the URL included in the request when the application isoperating in the background mode; and credit the Internet content as abackground application when the application is operating in thebackground mode at the identified time.
 26. (canceled)
 27. (canceled)28. (canceled)
 29. (canceled)
 30. (canceled)
 31. (canceled) 32.(canceled)
 33. (canceled)
 34. (canceled)
 35. (canceled)
 36. (canceled)37. (canceled)